by Elizabeth Pineau and Michel Rose
PARIS (Reuters) – Shaken with the approach of an uncertain first round of the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron is trying to “left” his speech to mobilize in his favor a disoriented electorate which he will need in the event of a final duel against Marine Le Pen.
After five years courting the center-right, the outgoing president is emphasizing social issues at the end of the campaign, when an abstention announced as important could help the far right to approach the doors of the Elysée. .
Asked Thursday by readers of Le Parisien, the Head of State promised to extend the costly measures aimed at protecting his fellow citizens from rising energy prices, explained his plans for education and health while aiming the “false social program” of the candidate of the National Rally, her potential opponent in the second round.
On RTL this Friday, Emmanuel Macron defended himself for having governed too much to the right at the end of a mandate where the left notably reproached him for having granted tax gifts to the wealthiest and endorsed police repression during demonstrations. “Yellow Vests”.
“From ‘whatever it takes’ to what we’ve done for education and the hospital, I don’t feel this is a project that you could call right-wing” , did he declare.
“I think that reducing unemployment is a social measure and at the same time a measure of economic efficiency”, also estimated the candidate who intends, if he is re-elected, to raise the retirement age. and raise the minimum pension amount to 1,100 euros.
“Today, voters on the left think that Emmanuel Macron is too right,” Jean-Daniel Lévy of the Harris Interactive pollster told Reuters. “So reassuring the left is an important challenge for the president.”
MEMBERSHIP VOTE
Left-wing voters, “we will have to talk to them on Sunday,” said former socialist minister Marisol Touraine, who will plead in this direction on the evening of the first round during Emmanuel Macron’s campaign committee of which she is a member.
“There are people who are on an irreconcilable line, but others are not”, judges the president of Unitaid, who calls for Emmanuel Macron to vote in the first round. “People who are hesitating today between (the environmentalist) Yannick Jadot and (the Popular Union candidate) Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for example, you have to talk to them on Sunday evening, and between the two rounds.”
An opinion shared by the former Socialist Secretary of State Juliette Méadel, also one of Emmanuel Macron’s supporters in the wake of the mayor of Dijon, François Rebsamen.
“In this second-round campaign, he will have to come back to social protection, health and education, which are left-wing issues on which he does not have a bad record. But he must go further”, she told Reuters.
Emmanuel Macron extensively developed the social justice measures of his program during his only major campaign meeting, Saturday at La Défense.
Facing him, Marine Le Pen promises to reduce VAT on fuel and basic necessities and to exempt French people under 30 from income tax.
If the Macron-Le Pen duel is confirmed at the polls, many center-left voters could abstain, dispelling the hypothesis of a solid “republican front” against the far right on April 24.
The latest Ifop poll announces a tighter score than ever, with Emmanuel Macron at 52% and Marine Le Pen at 48% (against 66% and 34% in 2017).
Marisol Touraine advocates the advent of a vote of adhesion of a part of the voters of the left in favor of the outgoing president.
“We must nurture the support of a left-wing electorate who will not have voted spontaneously for Emmanuel Macron. It is not by despising him, nor by criticizing him or by counting him for butter that we will mobilize him” , she says. “The voters are adults and they are tired of having the feeling that in the second round they are being asked for an automatic vote.”
(Report Elizabeth Pineau and Michel Rose,)